Dr. Caroline Wang, former Richmond family physician.

Photograph by: Submitted photo
, PNG files

Dr. Caroline Wang, a well-known former Richmond family physician, won a partial victory in her long-running suit against the B.C. Medical Association.

But she failed to establish its executives blackened her name in emails and other documents. The court ruled their statements were either protected by legal privilege or constituted fair comment.

The B.C. Supreme Court decision posted Monday painted her as a disingenuous troublemaker.

A chronic dissident, Wang soured a majority of the executives on the BCMA board during the 10 years she served as secretary treasurer.

When she lost in the 2008 association elections and was placed under investigation by the board, she sued.

She alleged statements made during the campaign damaged her reputation within the 11,000-strong medical community and caused her to lose her seat on the board.

As a result, she filed a suit for defamation and breach of contract.

In November 2008, the Supreme Court hammered the BCMA, saying it breached its own rules and the B.C. Society Act.

The board appealed and in January 2010, the B.C. Court of Appeal overturned the lower court decision saying there was an error in procedure.

Wang refiled her lawsuit.

After a 24-day trial and a year’s deliberation, Justice Christopher Grauer said in the latest decision that the BCMA had not treated Wang fairly and acted “clumsily.”

“With the advantage of hindsight, I, together with, I expect, most of the defendants as well as counsel, could think of better ways to have dealt with the situation,” he said.

Still, in his lengthy ruling, Justice Grauer was highly critical of Wang for her “unfortunate tendency to histrionics and exaggeration throughout her evidence.”

Her lack of insight into her own behaviour was “remarkable,” he added, and she was “very free” with scurrilous accusations.

The board characterized her claim as an “ideological lawsuit” undertaken to portray the BCMA “as corrupt and despotic individuals.”

It argued that her behaviour brought the board to “an unprecedented state of semi-paralysis, tension and dysfunction.”

The judge agreed and dismissed Wang’s contention that the board was “out to get” her.

“On the contrary, many of them went to great lengths to try to accommodate her, mentor her, and to help her participate more productively in the process,” Justice Grauer said.

“What is clear, as noted by Dr. Wang, is that the ever-increasing amount of time devoted to dealing with her actions was leading to dysfunction. What she could not see was the leading role she played in creating that problem — not through her oppositional political views, but rather through the personalized and confrontational manner in which she chose to express herself; and, ironically, her lack of openness and accountability.”

Though that did not excuse the association, Justice Grauer concluded:

“This court declares that the defendant BCMA breached its contract with the plaintiff by failing to provide for full procedural fairness in the composition and mandate of the Special Committee formed to review the plaintiff’s conduct as a director and officer of the BCMA in place of the Code of Conduct Committee originally authorized by the Board on February 1, 2008.”

(The ruling is available on the court website here — or by pasting http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/SC/13/03/2013BCSC0394.htm into your browser.)

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